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Wednesday, October 3, 2012

When the Going Gets Rough, the Weird Turn Pro...

Former gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson once wrote, "When the going gets rough, the weird turn pro..." Essentially saying that those who exhibit an ongoing fairly mild level of weirdness during so-called "Normal" times, up their weirdness to a professional level when things get truly rough, difficult, intense, etc.

Much of yesterday and into yesterday evening, the media was being teased by the Drudge Report in tandem with Sean Hannity of Fox News teased a major breaking story that would fundamentally change the course of this election. Hannity's opening line on his program last night were, "A bombshell is about to be dropped on the 2012 race for the White House."

The shocking video that was "released" last night was actually an old video of a speech then candidate Obama made to a group of African American ministers at Hampton University, a black college that opened its doors back in 1861.

This is astounding to me and many others that this video could be remotely considered a bombshell as the insinuation was that this was a never-before seen video, probably suppressed by Obama/Left Wing radical groups, that would collectively shake and wake American voters from their Obama-trance the President had cleverly placed them in, mostly with his blackness, several years ago.

Its nothing of the sort.

How could it be a shocker if it had already been covered back in 2007? Covered by Fox News no less? And other major news organisations?

The three main takeaways, according to those who "uncovered" this video were Obama's comments and acknowledgment of Reverend Jeremiah Wright, the controversial long-time pastor of his family but who Obama denounced during the campaign, his belief that the government should be doing more to fund minority business and improved public transportation and his criticism of the federal Government response to people in New Orleans during the aftermath of hurricane Katrina.

What's "news," let alone shocking to the point of being a bombshell? Oh, maybe the fake "black" accent that Obama is known to at times slide into when addressing predominately African American audiences?

What's next? Bulletins telling us we've landed on the moon? That the Space Shuttle has crashed? That Bill Buckner missed a ground ball? C'mon...

As Thompson wrote a long time ago, the weird have gone pro. These are not amateurs, these are professional bullshit artists of the first degree.

What voting blocks are seemingly supportive of today's GOP? Women? No. Minorities? No. The GLTB crowd? No. Care to take a wild guess which groups are growing in numbers? Yup...all of them.

Conservative leaning news groups like the National Journal to conservative commentators like David Frum are basically shaking their heads in response to the laughable crap that posed as "news" last night across conservative circles. If you're a conservative and you actually had a "a-HA!!!" feeling in your gut last night when you learned about this, go splash some water on your face and wake up.

This tired, border-line racist group of mostly older white guys is basically on notice. Growing swaths of the American Public don't want what you're selling, are tired of your scare tactics and thinly veiled racist attacks on President Obama. Proceed with caution, as you may be planting the seeds of a very bitter crop. America is moving on, and I suspect will re-elect this President. You can continue to shock and amaze the American people, not to mention plenty of conservatives, with your strategy of obstruction and mis-information. Its getting harder and harder to take you seriously. The leaders of the GOP need to do some soul-searching over the next few months about what their party really stands for.